Reflection: Agents of hope's fulfilment

When it became clear that I would not be preaching in person today, the sermon that I had prepared earlier in the month was no longer suitable, celebrating as it did the opportunity to again share in public worship. It will doubtless come in useful at a future date. Instead, therefore, more in the way of a letter than a sermon, I offer this reflection. Of course, I am by no means the first preacher who has resorted to letter writing when prevented from making a personal appearance .. most of Paul's letters in the New Testament arise from precisely this situation. Happily, however, unlike the apostle, I am not in prison, simply sharing your exile as a result of an unsafe church building.

One of the striking features of Paul's letters, before he gets to the heart of his message, is the affirmative salutation with which he always begins ... for example, writing to the church at Philippi, he begins, "To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." He then goes on to say, "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, thankful for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now". A similar salutation can be found in Galatians, Corinthians and others.

So, before getting to the heart of what I want to write, let me affirm you in your Christian identity; "To the saints in Christ Jesus who are the church of Northgate, with the elders and deacons: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." "May each of you know the blessing of God" And having affirmed you, writing in the manner of Paul, I move with quick step to thanksgiving to God.

I thank God for the witness of your faith as, amidst all of the current pressures, you continue to worship together (though apart), to offer support to one another in love, and uphold each other in prayer ...these things may seem insignificant and unimportant when seen through the lens of a global pandemic, but to an individual cut off from human contact, frightened and alone, the knowledge that they are being thought about, that they are being supported through your love and held in your prayer, is transformative. The greatest gift that we can give someone is the knowledge that they are not forgotten, not alone, and that they matter.

From affirmation and thanksgiving, Paul's letters then move to his reason for writing. Following his lead, therefore, let me now turn to the subject at the heart of this reflection .. hope .. something that we all need, but which for many has been in short supply over the past months. I have chosen to root my words in the book of Joel because of the oppressive setting from which he writes, but which could, so easily, have been rooted elsewhere.

The day will come, Joel says, when the sons of a nation shall prophesy, its young men shall see visions, and its old men shall dream dreams. It is an uncompromising affirmation of the hope mediated to him through his faith in the God of Israel. It is all the more remarkable because it is set against a backcloth of appalling hardship. Threatened from the outside by neighbouring peoples and by the pressure of foreign cultures, weakened internally by poverty, discontentment and religious apathy, the Jewish community to which the prophet spoke was far more concerned with the day-to-day business of survival than with what the future might hold ... prophecy, visions, dreams, demanded an energy that the this nation did not possess ... the locusts that had literally devastated the land (locusts are not a bad metaphor for Covid-19), the locusts that had eaten the years had also taken away hope.

Hope is an elusive lady. When one tries to describe her, to define her, she plays hard to get. One thing is clear, however, her absence from our lives makes them poorer, changing the succession of our days from something meaningful and purposeful to mere existence. Joel therefore sought to re-introduce this elusive lady to the Jewish people. Alone, he could of course do nothing to change their outward circumstances - but through directing their thoughts to God, he believed it was possible to give them back hope - a renewed, and vibrant hope founded upon confidence that their future was ultimately in God's hands. In order for hope to be renewed, however, they had to truly hear his words, to see with the prophet's eyes, to be lifted towards his God given vision of what could be, and then find within themselves the strength to become the agents of hope's fulfilment.

Hope is life giving - by renewing and restoring, hope invigorates faith with perseverance - it inspires and breathes an incontrovertible determination in people to continue the journey, to take the next step, hard as that might be and impossible as it may seem. All of us can bear testimony to that. Personally, I think it is the renewal of hope that will be the enduring legacy of the pandemic, but it seems we are a long way from the end yet.

For Joel, the source of hope lay in the activity of God - or more particularly, upon what is described as an outpouring of his spirit upon all flesh. This is an unfortunate turn of phrase because it creates a false picture. There is not a bottle marked "spirit" which God pours down from on high to fall on humanity like rain. The spirit is not a like an alien force from another planet, a tonic to supercharge men and women. On the contrary, the spirit of God acts between people, works more like enthusiasm - spilling over from one to the other - or in this case, from the divine to the human. A better word in the place of "pouring" therefore is "overflowing" - the spirit is the inner life of God (characteristically life affirming, loving and hopeful) overflowing into the life of men and women. Hope is God's infectious enthusiasm for the new day, his enthusiasm for the day when all that is promised is fulfilled - an enthusiasm in which we are caught up in and in which, because it is infectious, we share!

Hope, however, even hope rooted in God, does not stand on its own - if you will forgive extending an earlier metaphor - hope needs a dancing partner capable of dancing with such an elusive lady, and capable too of keeping in step. Hope's fulfilment is not a gift that relies upon our passivity and compliance but one that relies upon our active cooperation. To have hope means to live hopefully. We must become agents or active participants in making what is hoped for real, despite the obstacles that we face. That is my challenge to you - to live hopefully. Because hope is never fulfilled without active participation. To believe that it is, is like hoping to win the lottery but never buying a ticket - one has to actively do something from within the place without hope. Paul expresses like this: "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us"... thereby urging the church to put things into perspective.

I bring my letter to an end in the manner of the beginning, greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The wider brethren of Darlington greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of the Elliston household. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your Spirit.